Initial experience with SL

I just spent my first three hours playing Second Life.

Well, “playing” might be too strong of a word.

I spent the first 30 minutes trying to figure out why I couldn’t log onto the system (I had to update my graphics card driver); I then spent about an hour in the familiarization area, mostly customizing my avatar (which was fun in an administrative sort of way); and, finally, I spent the last hour and a half trying to leave said familiarization area (I could leave it, but I would either arrive at Welcome Area 4 and be told, “You have been logged out of Second Life. You have been disconnected from the region you were in” or, “Despite our best efforts, something unexpected has gone wrong.”).

I have also gotten more than a few “Unable to connect to Second Life. The system may be down” messages.

Are these types of issues common in SL? I understand I am not supposed to post about grid status in this forum but my problem is that I have no point of reference in terms of deciding whether this is a unique experience (i.e., something going wrong on my end) or is more systemic in nature. I have visited the Announcements & News forum, but there is no indication there are any system problems today.

Suffice it to say, I am currently feeling a little foolish for opting for a premium package. I should have test-drove the game with a free package and opted up if I enjoyed the experience.

I am hoping the experience gets better.

Time to go try to figure out why I am having these issues.

Aargh.

(By way of background: AMD 3500, 1 gig of RAM, GeForce 6600GT w/ 128 mb RAM, running Windows XP. Connecting via cable, 28mb down, 2 mb up, according to a just-run Speakeasy test – and yes, I take those numbers with a grain of salt…)

Hello Lunchbox!

Everything you've articulated, I read through it carefully. And I understand. Points of reference are important when it comes to setting your expectations; from what you've said so far, it certainly sounds like your system's up to stuff. I relate a lot to improving the experience because I'm an "enduser" Linden and approach things like, honestly, most of our Residents do--that has to do with the fact I was one for quite awhile before working for LL.

I've certainly had some of the issues you mentioned. I'll explain a little more...

One thing I'm wondering about is how stable your Internet connection is... the disconnects you mention can happen when things flake out when crossing between regions (those squares on the World Map). Hopefully you aren't on wireless either; that can be unreliable.

An easy way to test is as follows: press Ctrl-Shift-1 (or VIEW menu > STATISTICS BAR) in SL. You'll see a chart with lots of numbers on the right-hand side of the screen. Look at what it says next to Packet Loss, Ping Sim, and Ping User. All of those numbers should be as low as possible. Optimally, Packet Loss is 0%, and Ping Sim and Ping User is around 50-200 ms.

I've seen sporadic "Unable to connect to Second Life. The system may be down" messages in the last few days, but nothing that's persisted and would be widespread. I tend to get pretty noisy when I do see them, and I let other Lindens know ASAP. You can often tell by looking for threads that start up in the forums; they tend to grow pretty fast! As you may already know, Grid Status page is here and altho it's not the most reliable (we're working on that!), at least you can look at it. Knowing you're not alone is important!

Are these problems common? No, not on the whole, altho sometimes there are bad clumps that have the worst timing, and I know how much that can detract from the experience. Things get better with experience, tho.

General advice is also to spend time in different regions. Go somewhere busy with a lot of people, go somewhere quiet with noone else around. Just by doing, you'll get a better feel for it all.

Each person's experience varies, but since you're writing this, what matters here is that things get better for you since you placed enough faith in us to go Premium. And I really hope they do. There's also more help inworld if you press F1 for the Second Life Help Pages, and the Support page.

Another good forum to check is Technical Issues. If there's something affecting lots of our Residents, I like to aggregate the info and post updates so noone's left in the dark.

I am often inworld--if there's something specific causing trouble, we'd like to find out. Feel free to Instant Message me in Second Life or email me (torley@lindenlab.com) personally too. Take care Lunchbox.